Susanna had seen her mother before she went to the operating theatre, arriving late and harassed after her newspaper interview even though she was probably the only person aware of her lateness. This was going to be much more difficult because, although the details were still vague, the surgeon had, after all, decided to remove her mother’s left breast. Whatever the reason and whatever the prognosis – contact with hospitals made you think in medical terminology, Susanna noticed – her mother’s worst fears had been realised and she would take it badly. Like most people, Susanna disliked the smell of hospitals. In this particular corridor the warm, clinging, almost organic odour of antiseptic hand wash predominated. Her mother’s ward was, of course, a brisk, ten-minute walk from the entrance. Following the pastel-coloured, hanging signs, she wondered what they used to get the floors so shiny. Fellow visitors either squeaked or clicked along them depending on their shoes. Susanna clicked and although she secretly wished for a skateboard to make the journey quicker and more fun, she acknowledged to herself that the walk gave her time to gather her thoughts and calm down from the irritation of not only having to park as far away from the ward as was possible without leaving the grounds altogether, but also having to pay to do so. This was not a shopping expedition; nor was she on her way to a well-paid job. She was visiting a close relative in hospital. Surely the NHS could not be so strapped for cash that it had to overcharge visitors to use its insecure, vandalised and distant car parks. Her mother looked much older than she had that morning. Susanna hoped her shock at the sudden aging and Valerie’s pallor did not show in her face.
“Hello, Mum. How are you feeling?” Valerie turned he head on the pillow towards the sound of her daughter’s voice and smiled weakly.
“Hello, dear. They’ve taken it off.”
“Yes, I know, Mum. I ‘phoned this morning. I’m sorry. The doctors must know what they’re doing, though.” As she said the words she wondered yet again why her mother stubbornly refused to use private medicine. She tried not to allow head-space for the suspicion that a surgeon working in the NHS under time and cost pressure might be able to convince himself that radical surgery was in the patient’s best interest – especially if the surgeon was a man treating her mother’s condition with intellectual dispassion rather than feminine understanding of the emotional effect of having a breast removed. A voice broke into her thoughts.
“Miss Parson? I’m Sandra Patel. I carried out your mother’s operation. Has she told you about it?
“I rang earlier. I know you carried out a radical mastectomy.” Again, she noticed how contract with hospitals and doctors seemed to make the use of technical, medical terms appropriate and natural.
“That’s right,” said the white-coated figure. “Both your mother’s GP and I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary after all but there really was no alternative. It was definitely the best course of action for your mother’s long-term health. Anything less would have risked much worse problems later. As it is, I’m pretty confident we have dealt with the problem once and for all, although, of course, I would like to see Valerie again in a month to be on the safe side and she should have regular checks in the future. I’m telling you all this because, in these cases, relatives might think we undertake such major surgery because it’s easier or avoids on-going treatment. That’s quite a natural reaction.”
“Oh, no!” Susanna felt herself blushing hot. “I’m sure you did absolutely the right thing.”
The surgeon smiled and moved on down the ward. Susanna turned back to her mother’s wan smile.
“Never mind, Mum; you’ll just have to be careful that your boyfriend sits on your good side when he takes you to the pictures,” and she instantly regretted having allowed her embarrassment to provoke such a heartless remark. The two women looked at each other for a long second then simultaneously dissolved into tears.
Chapter 10
She really had to take herself in hand and do something to cheer up. She simply could not go on bursting into tears at every provocation. It was high time she put all this mother-George-hostage business out of her head. Casting around in her mind for a diversion, Susanna uncharacteristically found her thoughts straying to past excitements in her teens and early twenties when Friday night had often been ‘Black Pig’ night. The ‘Black Pig’ was a rambling and slightly run-down 1960’s pub on the edge of town. It had a large, detached function room with a stage that, on Friday nights, was given over to unsigned, and often unsignable, punk, rock and metal bands who performed, for free or after paying the pub, to a huge and devoted audience of grungy kids – a high proportion of them students at the convent school or the local grammar. There were massive loyalties to local bands and perhaps some of them, over the years and after many break ups and reformations, went on to be successful artists. It was one of the yeasty brews that spawned a lot of froth and some solid achievement – one of the thousands of breeding grounds for talent found throughout the country and celebrated, if at all, only by a few lines buried deep in the gig-guide columns of specialist music magazines. To hell with George and everything else, that was what she needed, a massive injection of loud music and anonymity in the semi-darkness of the music room at the ‘Black Pig’. And George would be green with envy at having missed a real, heaving, cradle-of-rock, gig.
She had only left home four years ago for her second job, this time in London, so some of her clothes must surely be in the back of her old wardrobe or, at worst, folded in a box somewhere in the attic. A mother who would still feed her daughter fish fingers and baked beans would have kept her teenage clothes, Susanna felt sure. She was not disappointed. Her image in the mirror looked familiar, if faintly dated. The black eye shadow gave her a slightly ghoulish look that didn’t quite fit her tanned skin. She needed to be pale and interesting rather than glowing healthily. Never mind. It would be dark. The once favourite, short, tight skirt was too short and too tight to be comfortable any more (had she really worn it day after day?) so she opted for jeans again and the grubby, well-worn and probably malodorous trainers. Maybe a frock on top? No. Better not. Plenty of black tee shirts and a bag full of beads to choose from. Suddenly uncomfortable at the prospect of walking in on her own, she thumbed through an old address book. Abbey had been a good laugh, or Chrissie – always ready for a last-minute outing. Better make sure the ‘Black Pig’ was still operational and open tonight, too. It was, but she had never heard of either of the two bands playing. That was not unusual. Come to that, she probably wouldn’t be able to remember the names of the bands in two or three days’ time; that was just as it had always been. She changed her mind about ringing friends from younger days. If she was going to make a fool of herself it would be better to do it alone. Anyway, she told herself, after several years they would probably have moved, got married or developed different interests. This was an expedition best undertaken alone.
She arrived too early wondering why she had parked several streets away. Was she, as she told herself, reluctant to expose her mother’s precious little car to the risk of being vandalised in a pub car park? Was she daringly planning to have a few drinks and anxious that breathalyser-brandishing police might target pubs, or was it the gnawing feeling that it was somehow the wrong thing to do to drive herself to a gig instead of walking from the station? All of the above, she decided, but mostly the last. Arriving early used to be de rigueur. The means of students did not stretch to buying many drinks at pub prices so the drill had been to club together to invest in a couple of six-packs of beer and maybe half a bottle of vodka from the supermarket and drink them sitting on the grass bank before going in. Not today, however. Susanna strode – then remembered where she was and shuffled – up to the door and got her wrist stamped with a smudged, illegible and indelible entry pass. Being early, there was no standing in line to see the show tonight. Being asked to hand over a fiver startled her slightly. It used to be free except for the occasional big – well, biggish – name band. The room seemed grubbier
than she remembered and smellier too – a mix of stale beer, stale cigarette smoke and stale deodorant. There seemed to be a continuous slight haze of dust giving the room a brownish light. The house lights were still on – a bad sign indicating a significant wait for the first band. Even so, the lights somehow made the room dingier and she had to squint to see the bar. It had moved. Or more probably someone had moved it, she told herself with a little nervous giggle. It used to take up almost the whole of one side of the room. Now it was jammed into a corner next to the toilets. Better idea, she thought, and it makes the room look bigger. She bought a pint of lager. She did not know why. She hardly ever drank lager but the brimming, plastic container gave her something to hold and sip. Everyone seemed to be with someone. Even the familiar pair of over-made-up, freckled, fish-netted and black-booted thirteen year olds – identical twins, perhaps - squeezed together against the left-hand corner of the stage were together. Surely they couldn’t be the same kids she used to see there, or perhaps they were just representative of all over-made-up, surly, early-teenage Goth-girls without whom no live rock performance would be complete. Susanna began to feel more at home. The background music was loud enough to make conversation difficult so even groups that followed her through the door stood silent, apart from the occasional comment or question shouted into the ear of the listener. She was more than half way through the pint and beginning again to feel conspicuous when the telltale figures appeared phantom-like on the low stage, connecting cables, testing amplifiers, adjusting the position of pieces of the drum kit and squatting or bent double, fiddling with unidentified black boxes and their dials and switches. A small crowd began to form in front of the stage in anticipation of the appearance of the first band who, when they emerged self-consciously, turned out to be three youngsters in frayed jeans and the same sort of broken-down trainers Susanna was wearing. Avoiding the ‘mosh pit’ directly in front of the band, she sidled forward, aiming for the corner of the stage already occupied by the freckled groupies – twins indeed on closer examination, as she had first thought. ‘Click-click-click-click’. The drummer’s sticks tapped together synchronising the ear-splitting crash and roar of guitars and drums, amplified almost beyond endurance to Susanna standing, as she was, immediately in front of one of the speakers. The mosh pit erupted into life as a single heaving, bouncing mass of underage humanity, outlined against the stage lights like a single, convulsing animal. They were not bad, this band, not bad at all. Only one cover, a tribute to their idols, Nirvana, everything else their own material in the best traditions of teenage rock. A brilliant, set; this was the escape what she had come for. Nearly an hour later, the second pint and the second band began to cloy. Her depression returned enough to allow her to wonder if she was the oldest person in the room. Probably not but the spell was broken and half way through both pint and set, she shuffled, self-consciously, easing herself sideways through the thinner part of the crowd, towards the door. Outside small groups of teenagers lounged on the grassy banks at the edge of the car park, chatting, cooling off from the rigours of the pit and sharing cigarettes.
“There you go, mate,” said Susanna, handing her half-finished lager to a nearby youngster.
“Oh, cheers! Nice one.”
As she padded briskly though the dark, empty, suburban streets to where she had left her mother’s car, Susanna decided that going back to the ‘Black Pig’ had not been such a great idea and this would be the last time. Trying to relive the past never worked. As she had told George more than once to try to focus him on making plans for the future, the past is over. Life is organised on a ratchet; the only way out is forward.
Chapter 11
For several minutes after the end of his telephone conversations with Susanna - ‘conversation’, singular, he told himself as he had not said a word during the second call - George had just sat by the telephone while his heartbeat and breathing slowly returned to normal. His feelings had been that he was the victim of a deep injustice. He had set out to please Susanna; to show his willingness to help. He had only done what she asked him to do and done it well too; he had been attacked and wounded for it. He was entitled to Susanna’s approval and he had been betrayed. Susanna was being irrational and unreasonable. And what was she talking about when she told him to read the Sunday papers? Surely she had not been talking to the press. She would not be so silly, would she? There had been other things he had wanted to say – questions about her and her mother, concern about how she was coping with the memory of her ordeal, anxiety about her mother (influenced, he had to admit, by his own anxieties about the possibility of having to travel to the UK.) And he had wanted to say how much he missed her, and tell her about Deborah’s visit – still ongoing at the time – and explain, so that any local gossip would not upset her. In fact, he had intended to be the model of a caring, considerate partner and had expected to hear her confirm, in turn, her approval of his initiative and affection for him, but she had opened fire on him. It was not fair. Little by little, as his hurt and anger began to subside and he regained control of himself and his thoughts and his fundamental humanity started to reassert itself. Susanna had been under a lot of strain over the last few days. She would be desperately worried about her mother and still suffering a reaction from the airport incident. She was entitled to be a bit emotional. He could hardly blame her for having a short fuse, even if he had received the full force of the detonation. He just happened to be in the line of fire of a lot of pent up emotion. She must have said that about the papers just to annoy him. It was probably nothing. Come to that, he should have foreseen Susanna’s reaction and taken care to stay out of the line of fire or prepared himself to take the force of the explosion without reacting himself. He had been stupid not to expect it. Why had he blurted out how clever he had been? The first thing he had said was that he had set up arrangements for the girls to get work permits. Instead of showing his concern about Susanna, he had started out by demonstrating his own cleverness, like a little boy breathlessly gabbling about the achievements of his school day as soon as he walked through the door. He had not stopped to think, made no plan to accommodate Susanna’s thoughts and feelings. God! The next thing he would have said if he had been given the chance was that Deborah had spent the night! That really would have got a reaction! Had Susanna called him a thoughtless pig? He could not remember now but he had been. This need for approval, a pathetic yearning for reassurance was disgusting. He tore himself back to reality. This was no time to be philosophical. He should be trying to put matters right with Susanna. He actually had his hand on the telephone, intending to ring her straight back and make amends, before he realised he was about to repeat his recent mistake. And there needed to be some sort of action, rather than words. He had promised he would join Susanna if her mother’s illness were serious. That promise had been easy to make because he had told himself that things would work out fine and he would not have to keep it. Now what should he do? Could he take the risk of travelling to Valerie’s home in Swindon? What were the chances of his being recognised or stopped? He could not be sure and he was beginning to find it difficult to distinguish between paranoia and the fear of becoming paranoid. If he did not join her or persuade her to come back – unlikely in the circumstances – the rift would grow. Okay, so this was only a row but there was an issue behind it and he needed to tackle it. Somehow. And there was still the matter of Deborah to be dealt with. The last thing he needed was to have Susanna hear about Deborah from someone else. And for sure she would if she came back. So did he have to travel to see her and how safe was that? His thoughts, having come full circle, were broken by Deborah’s putting her head around the door.
“I am sorry, George. I could not help hearing some of that. Is everything all right? I hope I haven’t caused too much of a problem. I’ve just made some fresh coffee. Do you want some?”
Despite his intention to be discrete, so strong only a few moments ago, George found it very easy to tell Deborah all ab
out the four girls still in the police station near the airport and his plans and arrangements to get them into Britain, safe from the retribution of the people-smuggling ring. She frowned in concentration, nodding encouragement as he warmed to the story.
“When will these girls be sent back to Albania, George? They cannot keep them at the police station for more than a few days, a week at most. If they are charged with illegal entry, they will be held in a gaol until they go to court; meanwhile they will be questioned to find out how much they know. If they are sent home – and that seems likely from what they said – they will be leaving in a few days, maybe sooner if there are Albanian police to escort them back. When are you going to see them again and what are they supposed to do until they can travel to London. It will be weeks before they can do that, won’t it?”
“I hadn’t got as far as thinking about all that, or, at least I haven’t made any plans,” replied a slightly crestfallen George, some of his self-satisfaction evaporating in the realisation that he probably appeared less than competent to Deborah. “Got any ideas?”
“Well, assuming they are repatriated to Albania… yes, yes, and Macedonia… they will need somewhere to hide or better still, somewhere to go out of the country while they wait for their permits. They could stay with my mother and father in Bulgaria, in Sofia. They would be safe there, I think. I do not believe they will have any problems travelling. People do it all the time.”
Say You Never Met Me Page 7